Like other sectors, healthcare is also changing and taking new forms. While phone calls have been replaced by patients’ portals, paper records are being replaced by the EHR systems. It’s clear from the below-mentioned stats:

1. More than 40% users prefer making appointments online.

2. Around 85% of office-based physicians use EHR systems to access patient data.

Along with that, one of the most revolutionary offers in the healthcare app development sector is the telemedicine. Telemedicine apps allow patients and doctors to avoid the inconveniences caused by frequent hospital visits for every small update. And, now these visits have been replaced by a remote communication.

If you are thinking, why should you develop a telemedicine app, here is the answer.

It was found in a report that, around 75% of overall hospital visits can be handled by phone or video call. To put it in other words, the money and time spend by patients to visit hospitals just for some basic checkups are not worth.

Along with that, availability of doctors is not always an option for the hospitals. In many countries, hospitals face the shortage of healthcare facilities or specialists to attend patients, resulting in long waits and constant overload. In such times, patients have to wait for weeks just to get an appointment, that too just for a routine checkup. On the other hand, doctors are expected to work overtime and serve as many patients as possible all day.

Telemedicine app allows hospital facilities to have a hands-on option to the hospital visits. Telemedicine app creates an effective schedule for the specialists and healthcare professionals, saves patients’ time who don’t need any physical examination, and enables people from rural areas to have better access to healthcare services from a remote location.

Factors need to discuss with healthcare software development company to build a  telemedicine solution for your hospital.

1. UI/UX Implementation
   
   To go for telemedicine app development, you must have two different apps for both the sides: one for patients and one for the doctors. As both these apps will have different functionalities, they must have different UIs too, based on their functionality. But along with that, it is important to keep a consistent style and provide friendly user-experience in both applications.

2. Backend integration
   
   In order to properly communicate, patients’ and doctors’ apps need to be integrated with a backend system, a separate developed server to mediates data exchange between these two apps. Upon integration, these apps will address all the encrypted requests to the server to send and receive information. To provide efficient communication, it is necessary to use the secure data exchange protocols in the app to make it fully HIPAA compliant and saves patients’ sensitive data.

3. Reimbursement
   
   At present, almost 45 states and DC have implemented telemedicine parity laws, allows healthcare professionals to charge for the remote patient care. In order to make this process easier for both the parties, your app should offer secure card payment or Medicaid/Medicare insurance to patients and CPT/HCPCS codes to doctors during billing.  

4. Convenient Patient Care
   
   As per the data by HIDA, more than 70% of patients have tried telemedicine and liked it. 95% of people who had an e-visit believe that it was great, whereas around 50% of them was preferring it as an in-person visit. The convenience and assurance of not being in a serious health condition provide patients a sense of relief, thus increases telemedicine app popularity even in rural areas. Along with that, patients have pointed out that the doctor they interacted with were more involved, attentive, and relaxed.  

Wrapping up,

There is no doubt that with telemedicine app, doctors feel more engaged and have better communication with their patients without any stress of maintaining a schedule or paper records. Telemedicine apps not only reduce paperwork and improve workflow, but also provide relief to the healthcare professionals, allow them to be more considerate towards their patients.